Evils of deleting cache and Private Browsing (cacheless browsing)

People seem to like clearing their browser cache habitually thinking that it will keep browsing smooth, akin to sending a car for a service. Some also clear cache because of paranoia: someone might view my browser history, I better not keep any. To the extent that they yearned for a feature that will automatically clear cache when they finish using it. Now, it's included as a standard in popular browsers. But don't you feel anything when you have to redownload a (lawful) page you've visited yesterday?

That unsubstantiated feeling of insecurity

Internet adoption rate is growing tremendously. No longer is it limited to geeks or academicians. Average Joes, grandmas, including the sensitive ones have become the majority. They know not the inner workings of the internet, and won't bother to, as long as they can use it for finding stuffs, etc. Then comes the soothsayer, who claims that their privacy is being invaded; every footstep they take on the net is being watched. I just don't get this qualm; yes, internet-based commercial businesses do utilize cookies to track your browsing habit, but it's not like they are going to blackmail you with the information they've managed to gather.

Another issue is the browsing history left on disk. I'm sorry to break it, but unless you own everything from the PC to the ISP, there is no way to conceal the tracks you left. Let's say if you share your router with someone else. If you're not the admin of the router, you can't hide the tracks you left on it. But if you're only concerned with what you store on your disk (assuming you tried your best and are using proxy), consider running on a seperate browser installed on an encrypted drive.

Why cache?

The function of browser cache is to reduce amount of data you have to redownload when you revisit a site. A site may have plenty resource files: the images for logo, the stylesheets, the scripts, etc; and they are shared/reused among the pages. So if you visited www.example.com/page1 and had it fully loaded with with the background image, the CSS/JS files, it shouldn't make sense to have to download the files again when you visit www.example.com/page2 if the latter reuse the same parts i.e. a page with the same layout but only diferrent text content.

But when you clear the cache, you effectively force the browser to start with a clean slate. All good unchanged parts, already downloaded, will go to waste. So think twice before doing that.

Page malfunctions due to cache?

Sometimes you see suggestions to clear cache whenever you come across certain kind of problems on a page. I see this very often, and from my experience, the problem does not root from cache; rather, it may be due to scripting quirks, or just bad cookies. If you ever get this kind of problem, please, try clearing cookies first. Clearing cookies is not as destructive as clearing cache. Also, try another browser with different engine.

Web authors' adaptation to new surfer habits

Previously I've talked about the evils of dynamic pages, or pages not optimized for caching. Well, this trend of surfing in private mode is probably encouraging more web authors to disregard caching, seeing that more and more pages that they are serving, are being disposed of almost immediately. I'm sensing a vicious cycle here: people start to disregard cached browsing ⇒ webmasters stop optimizing for cache ⇒ since page is not served with proper caching support, more people are less-inclined to keep their cache, ad infinitum.

Firefox vs Chrome: handling of history/cache

One more reason to delete the cache would be the browser's behaviour regarding it. It seems Firefox is very slow to start up when the cache has built up quite a bit. It's the price to pay for having the Awesome Bar, which in my experience, has the best history searching. Chrome's Omnibar has almost similar feature, but maybe because it doesn't preload everything in the history, it is quite slow in coming up with the location I want. In return, it's the fastest among all popular browsers in startup time.

To sum it up

Try to avoid clearing cache. If you are experiencing problems on a page, try these first:

1. Clear cookies
2. Use other browsers
3. Clear cache only on that page, by forcing refresh (usually by Shift-F5)

Also, if browsing privately,

1. Use a seperately installed browser. Preferably a portable one. Installed on an encrypted folder/drive.
2. Use a proxy to avoid being tracked outside the computer (like, on the router)

And if the AwesomeBar/Omnibar is becoming sluggish, delete only the history. Spare the cache, please. For great justice!